The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent the work is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
With the proliferation of computer data centers, and computer servers, the need has developed for more powerful tools to manage computer racks of computer data centers and servers as they increase in size and complexity. Simple network management protocol (SNMP) is one facility available for managing computer networks. The SNMP includes two primary elements: a manager and agents. The SNMP manager is the console through which a network administrator performs rack management functions. The SNMP agents are entities that interface to the actual managed devices. Power Distribution Units (PDU) with network manageability are examples of managed devices that contain managed objects. The managed objects of each managed device might be hardware, configuration parameters, performance statistics, and so on, that directly relate to the current operation of the managed device. The managed objects are arranged in a management information base (MIB) and each managed object is referred to as an object in the MIB. The SNMP allows managers and agents to communicate for the purpose of accessing these MIB objects.
Typically, the MIB is organized in a tree structure composed of branch nodes and leaf nodes. The MIB objects representing the managed objects of the same network device usually reside at the leaf nodes rooting from the same branch node. Each MIB object has an object identifier (OID), which is a sequence of integers in a tree structure that uniquely identifies the MIB object residing at a leaf node. When the manager requests a value of a MIB object from an agent, the OID of the MIB object should be sent by the manager and traversed by the agent.
Though the SNMP access is simple due to the small number of command messages, it requires that the user have in-depth knowledge of the MIB, and particularly be familiar with the OID of each MIB object. Also, building the variable binding which includes the OID and the corresponding object value is typically a tedious task and is subject to human errors. Additionally, PDU products from various vendors will have significant differences and these differences make the monitoring and managing these PDUs a difficult task. Therefore, it will be advantageous to have a system that allows the operator to upload the MIB associated with the specific PDUs to be managed, and to map the PDU functionalities with MIB OID's to facilitate the management of the PDUs.
Therefore, heretofore unaddressed needs still exist in the art to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.